Celtics Jaylen Brown to speak at Harvard University tonight


For Jaylen Brown, it was a convincing win on the hardwood last night against the Charlotte Hornets, and tonight he is off to the halls of learning where Jaylen will speak at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. One of the indicators of an intellectual is having curiosity about many things, places and happenings. Brown certainly has that. He is looking forward to his visit to Harvard and speaking at the Askwith Forums.


Askwith Forums – One on One with Jaylen Brown: Athlete and Intellectual

Description:
Speaker: Jaylen Brown, guard/forward, Boston Celtics, National Basketball Association (NBA)

Moderator: Jal Mehta, associate professor of education, HGSE

Who is Jaylen Brown? He taught himself Spanish – and is currently learning Arabic; he plays chess and the piano; and he comments eloquently on politics, education, and the impact of racism in America. Oh, and he’s a professional basketball player for the Boston Celtics. Surprised?

Jaylen Brown has experienced the “too smart” for basketball stigma since his youth. Being an athlete and an intellectual seems so incongruent in our society – particularly for young men and women of color. But athletes are much more than masters of their sports – they’re investors and entrepreneurs, philosophers, philanthropists, hobbyists, and multi-dimensional individuals shaped by their experiences growing up, learning, and playing sports in our society.

Based on his personal experiences coming of age in Marietta, Georgia, as an up-and-coming basketball star in college at University of California, Berkeley, and in his two years with the Celtics, Brown will discuss institutionalized sport and education, inequality by design, the role sports play in society, and why he thinks athletes can, and should, be ready to use their celebrity and prominence to speak up and advocate for change.

In conjunction with the Office of Student Affairs and the Alumni of Color Conference (AOCC).

PLEASE NOTE: Seating for this forum will be available on a first come, first seated basis. Askwith Hall is expected to fill quickly. Seats may not be saved for those pending arrival. Additional seating will be available in satellite spaces on campus once Askwith Hall fills to capacity.

The queue for Askwith Hall seating will start at 4:30 p.m. Out of respect for the academic and classroom environment, we request that you do not arrive prior to 4:30 p.m.

This will be both an honor and a test for Jaylen. He certainly has the mental tools, but he is young and would need to stay within his present sphere of knowledge. As I wrote previously in CelticsLife Jaylen made a couple of slips on his statements about time passage on our planet and Pluto, confusing time-of-planet rotation and gravity's effect on the speed of time-passage. Harvard graduate students may not be as forgiving as sports writers. But you know Brown has done his homework.

Follow Tom at @TomLaneHC

Photo via Kelly Kline/Getty Images